by Patrick Wyman
Release Date: May 5, 2026
2026 Harper
Ebook ARC; 464 Pages
ISBN: 978-0063256484
ASIN: B0FP9C8WB4
Audiobook: B0FPRNDH6J
Genre: Non-fiction / History / Anthropology
Source: Review copy from publisher
4 / 5 Stars
Summary
There’s a familiar story about us humans: we
went from hunting and gathering to farming, wandering bands to villages
and cities, clans and chieftains to states and kings. But Lost Worlds
offers a new narrative of humanity’s deep history. Here beloved podcast
host Patrick Wyman focuses on the 10,000-year span between the end of
the Ice Age and the decline of the Bronze Age—the period when
civilization as we understand it emerged, introducing social
hierarchies, urbanism, complex political organizations, and the written
word.
In this nuanced retelling, human progress is no longer a straight march from caves to cities: Farming didn’t always replace foraging, villages didn’t automatically spark agriculture, and cities didn’t necessitate rigid hierarchies. For thousands of years, humans merely improvised. By the end of the Bronze Age, the world had become unrecognizable: mammoths and giant sloths replaced by cattle and sheep, scattered nomadic bands replaced by millions living in cities, and farming on nearly every continent. Wyman argues that the rise of states and steady food production wasn’t inevitable, but rather, the outcome of countless choices that reshaped the planet and made us who we are today.
In this nuanced retelling, human progress is no longer a straight march from caves to cities: Farming didn’t always replace foraging, villages didn’t automatically spark agriculture, and cities didn’t necessitate rigid hierarchies. For thousands of years, humans merely improvised. By the end of the Bronze Age, the world had become unrecognizable: mammoths and giant sloths replaced by cattle and sheep, scattered nomadic bands replaced by millions living in cities, and farming on nearly every continent. Wyman argues that the rise of states and steady food production wasn’t inevitable, but rather, the outcome of countless choices that reshaped the planet and made us who we are today.
My Thoughts
Lost Worlds is one of those books that I found quite interesting, both from the anthropological perspective as well as the archaeological perspective. When I took archaeology classes in university, I was one of those people that never accepted the linear development of a civilization as absolute as humans are far too complex for that to exist everywhere and in every society. I sort of liken it to child development where there are many different paths to how a child learns to walk and not every child takes the same path. The grown of civilization is much more complex and spread around the world, so it just didn't make sense to me that societies would develop along the same pathways. This book takes a look a complex political and social organizations and how human progress wasn't linear and didn't necessarily follow identical paths from foraging to villages to cities.
It follows a 10000-year span from the end of the Ice Age to the decline of the Bronze Age and because of the scope of the work as well as the amount of civilizations involved, the author focuses on different societies for each chapter. This suited me quite well, but one must remain cognizant of the choices as well as they would support the reasoning for the book. Similar societies could have been chosen which would have supported a counter-argument, but the scope for that would have required a much longer book than this one.
While I know quite a bit about Neolithic and Bronze Age Societies, there were some that were chosen with which I was not as familiar so I enjoyed learning about how they developed and how their societies functioned. Because the book focused on the agriculture side of the development, the author did spend a lot of time discussing the importance of foraging and producing enough food for the people of these developments, some of which turned to agriculture while others simply moved locations when the food sources dried up. I found it fascinating and did learn quite a bit about how societies survived. This was not a book about battles, kings and queens, emperors, etc..., but about how a civilization survived and the complex hierarchies and societies developed to ensure survival. It was also a book that speculated as to the reasons why some societies turned more towards farming while others, just as complex, never developed beyond foraging. The author mentioned quite often it was a mistake to think these societies that didn't develop along the same lines weren't as complex as those that did and provided ample proof for his statements.
The anthropological and archaeological studies used to determine how these complex societies functioned ran through all the explanations given in this book and I enjoyed learning about a lot of the processes being used today, so different from my studies over thirty years ago. Scientists have this ability to analyze information that was not previously available through new techniques and they are developed even newer ones all the time. I found it fascinating when I read about how much information they could get off a single frozen body that was over 5000 years old just by analyzing DNA in the bones or from the stomach contents. And that was just the simpler stuff. Bodies can give us cause of death, injuries sustained during a lifetime, illnesses sustained during a lifetime, where they grew up, where they traveled, and the list just goes on and on. And I have always know how much information one can get from a trash pit, but with the new techniques it must be mind-boggling today.
Verdict
Lost Worlds was definitely an enjoyable read and I personally thought gave the reader a clearer picture into some complex societies of the past. It was not a book about individual people, battles, dominance, etc..., but more about how different societies developed differently from others, but still made it work. It was also to show that complex societies and hierarchies didn't grow linearly, but grew according to local needs and necessities. Naturally, some societies were closer to others and would have had an impact on each other, but others were quite far away and developed at the same time, but still had different approaches and results. This is what I found particularly interesting with regards to this book. While there were some parts that were a bit repetitive, and I did feel as if the author was struggling with his reader audience, a struggle between the more rigorous scientific approach or a more layman's approach, and this could be seen in the book, there was still quite a lot to absorb and think about. I have not listened to this author's podcasts at this point, but I am probably going to start as I found his book quite interesting.
